The Problem with Peacocks
by La Caterina
Summary: Just before Draco leaves for his first year, he finds himself deep in mischief.  An inside glimpse into the home life at Malfoy Manor and the elegantly eccentric family that lives there.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note- Hope you enjoy this short story about the Malfoys. This little snippet takes place just before Draco leaves for his first year, but first, his parents may find him a little to deep in childish mischief... _

_Enjoy! And please R&R_

* * *

"Dobby!" a seething voice screeched from behind a heavy, thickly paneled ebony door. With a seemingly deafening creak, the door opened, and out stepped a fine witch. Her long silvery-blonde hair was tussled up away from her delicate face—her cheeks perfectly rouged and her lips perfectly painted. Yet those perfect lips quivered in suppressed anger and agitation, her porcelain forehead lined in worry.

Untangling his hands from what appeared to be a nasty, writhing red-colored vine, the house elf apparated, squealing, as the vine would simply refuse to come undone, coiling and slithering tighter and higher on Dobby's thin arms.

With a frustrated huff, the witch pulled out her wand from the inside of her black, billowing sleeve, and with a simple flick of her elegant fingers, the red vine dropped lifeless to the ground between them. The house elf's wide eyes shot up to plead with his mistress, "Dobby is sorry, Mistress Malfoy. Dobby pruned the Ravished Redidendrons just as Mistress said, but Dobby just could not…"

"Enough," Narcissa's cool voice resounded clear and ringing in the dim halls of Malfoy Manor. "This is why I told you to separate the Redidendrons from the Snargaluff bushes," her blue eyes looked down at the creature before her, unmoving and unrelenting; "Dobby hasn't disobeyed his family, has he?"

"N-n-no, Mistress," the elf's large ears quivered and drooped behind his head in his increasing anxiety, "Dobby did everything he was told… He knows not to disobey the Malfoys… Dobby will punish himself for his Mistress even so much as suspecting Dobby of disobedience," thick streams of tears began running down his tiny grey, pointed nose.

Narcissa ground her teeth together, her agitated impatience welling up within her, "That… won't be necessary, Dobby. Just be warned, for if you do it again, I may have to tell your master of your errors."

At the very mention of Lucius Malfoy, Dobby's tears increased three-fold, it seemed to Narcissa, who rolled her eyes; "Dobby!" she commanded, with a slight jerk of her head, "I order you stop your crying and your caterwauling this instant." Dobby obliged, but with much difficulty, stuffing his tiny fist in his tiny mouth as if to plug up all his tears. "Much better," Narcissa nodded once as she slowly lifted her eyes from the trembling elf before her. "Now, Dobby, where is Draco? I haven't seen him all day since he left to train his new owls before he leaves for school."

Dobby hesitated a moment, squinting his large eyes, considering if he could remove his fist from his mouth long enough to answer the question, without a single tear or scream escaping from him. "Dobby hasn't seen the Young Master either, Mistress," he finally choked out after removing his fist with a distinct pop.

Narcissa looked up to the ceiling, her delicate features drawing back in her worry, her elegant hand tightening on her equally elegant ebony wand. She regretted letting her young eleven-year-old son go to the Aviary alone for the first time the moment she caved in to his complaints and whines. She knew what else dwelled in the Aviary. And she knew just how much they might enjoy the tasteful company of a young boy… or rather tasty company.


	2. Chapter 2

With an ear popping bang, Narcissa apparated in the middle of the yard behind their elaborate manor. The Aviary before her suddenly seemed sinister, its shining silver walls dimmed darkly in the cloudy afternoon sun, and deep shadows covered the decorative silver birds around the entrance. Their little marble figures hopped and twittered around doorframe, dancing and starting about each other in façade.

A piercing scream emitted from inside the large building, echoing in her ears and amplified by the terror in her heart. Pulling out her wand from her wide sleeve, she rushed inside, running past the owls on their perches, tawnies, snowies, some with horns, some with slanted eyes, each hooting his displeasure and agitation. She sprinted to the very rear of the room to another door, smaller and narrower; two large silver phoenixes stood guard on either side, perched on the lintel, turning their shinning feathered heads to watch Narcissa pass quickly through their keep.

Narcissa stopped in her tracks, frozen before a streak of shinning liquid along the ground. Blood. With a quick turn of her head, she realized it was as she feared. An ornate silver cage, like those for small songbirds only much, much larger, sat with its door wide open.

"Mummy!" Draco's voice cried out in pain from the shadowed cornered, his plea immediately covered by eerie shrieks and beating wings. Narcissa turned to face the offenders. She waved her wand with vehemence into the darkened corner, and a flutter of agitated feathers replied. Moving her wand away from her son, five gleaming white peacocks floated through the air. As they drifted unwillingly away from their prey, they snapped their beaks and shrieked their disapproval, all five of their bleached beaks tinted and smeared with red, the sight chilling Narcissa's heart cold.

She levitated the peacocks across the room, releasing them from her spell once inside their cage and slamming their barred door shut with a flick of her wand and a resounding clang. The white birds flapped and screeched from between the silver bars. Narcissa narrowed her eyes at the creatures that preyed on her only son, and with another flick of her wand, she cast a silencing charm, sealing off the cage with a short series of spells, wishing she could just get rid of the albino vermin.

Narcissa tried to relax, her pulse still racing and her breath still panting from her motherly fear. Draco shuffled up beside her, whining and crying in his trauma; he cradled his left hand in his right, blood dripping to the floor as he inched his way to his mother. "Mummy," he whimpered weakly, holding up his wounded hand, gashed and cut in myriad scratches. Three bleeding stumps were all that remained of most of his fingers.

"Oh, Draco," Narcissa gently scolded as she ran her wand slowly over the wounds, the skin healing over the top of his hands. As she got to his missing fingers, she paused and looked down into her son's frightened pale blue eyes, still swollen, red, and tearing. "Draco, have I not warned you about your father's creations?"

Her son bit his lip in guilt and looked down as his pinky began to sprout, "Yes, Mummy," he confessed automatically.

Narcissa cleared her throat, concentrating on her magic, "And what have I told you many, many times about your father's pets?"

"Not to touch them," he mumbled in childish shame.

"Not to touch them, not to feed them, not to even go anywhere remotely near them," her voice scolded him harshly, her face lined delicately in worry and anger. "Do you know how worried I was? Didn't you think there was a reason _why_ I told you not to taunt them?"

Draco's eyes fell out of remorse to the floor. "My… fingers…" he moaned in between sniffled tears.

Narcissa placed her wand over the next bleeding stump, "I can fix them this time, my dear. Just be glad the birds were not magically charmed, or else I would not be able to fix you personally." She sighed with her agitation, knowing she had to teach her son a lesson. "But next time you go anywhere near these creatures, I will not fix your injuries with magic. You can suffer like a Muggle or a Mudblood and have your wounds heal on their own. Next time you disobey me or your father, I will not regrow your appendages, do you understand?" she softened her question, coaxing him gently and feeling her pity warm towards her sniveling son.

Draco nodded furiously, looking up at his mother with puffy, teary eyes, "But Mummy, what if…" he pleaded.

"No buts, Draco. I mean it." Her eyes met his and she continued to grow his next missing finger, and Draco sniffled back the last of his tears. Narcissa felt her thin lips turn down into a grimace, wishing she didn't have to be in this situation, that she didn't have to grow back half her child's hand. Grumbling under her breath, she concentrated hard on the end of her wand, "I just don't understand why he insists on experimenting with these… flesh eating peacocks to protect the grounds… _pfff…_ most people just use spells for that sort of thing… but not us Malfoys…"

Once the stump of his thumb returned, Narcissa grabbed Draco by his hand, quickly leading him out of the back chamber, past the exotic birds to a lovely owl chick, a baby eagle owl. "Now Draco, you need to play with your new bird. Train him or he will not obey you as well once you go to school," she gestured to the flustered owlet as he hooted in his high-pitched, breathy song.

"I don't want to. I don't want to be anywhere near birds now," he complained, clinging to his mother's velvety black dress and flexing his new-grown fingers.

Narcissa ran her elegant fingers through his short flaxen hair as he dried his eyes on her sleeve. She hushed him gently, continuing to play with his hair with one hand. With the other, she offered her finger on the edge of the owlet's perch, and the baby owl sided away from it at first. A gentle coaxing tut convinced the bird to step up with a soft hoot. Narcissa gently lifted Draco's face from her side, holding the owlet before him, "What will you name him, darling?" she asked softly.

Draco held his finger up, and the bird stepped tentatively onto the child's hand, fluttering its nearly-shinning feathers in unrest, its orange eyes wide as it returned the boy's curious stare. "I think… I think I'll call him Titus," Draco spoke softly, and the bird hooted its content with its name as its young master began stroking its head.

"Well chosen," Narcissa commented, stepping away from her son, "Titus appreciates the name, I'm sure. Now, if you think you can behave yourself, my dear, I believe it's time I had a word with your father."

Draco smiled as the owlet around his hand, and then from one hand to the other with a testing flap of its still-growing wings. "Mummy," he turned his head, "think the birds will obey me some day like they obey Father?"

"That would make your father very proud, Draco, I'm sure," she replied, then turned to walk out of the Aviary, trying to hide the hints of cynicism in her voice. Lucius and his birds, Narcissa huffed, they had already cost the family an arm and a leg. And now her son's fingers as well.


End file.
